by John Riley
'My Grandad cried and Mummy pushed him over onto the floor and she shouted like before and Laura shut the door and we got our shoes on and do you know she wouldn't let me put my shoes on properly so my laces aren't tied up?' He lifted said shoes for inspection, Sarah looked down obligingly,
'Here.' Laura pulled her brother's feet towards her and tied the laces quickly,
'Where did your Mum go that night?'
'I don't know.' The girl said with a half shrug, Sarah nodded, how or why would she know what her Mother was doing?
Regardless, it seemed more and more likely that whatever had happened to these people, whatever had changed them, had happened no earlier than yesterday. This meant that Daniel had probably been changed at the club like she had thought, had only been lying to her today.
'God why.' Sarah muttered darkly, she hugged her knees to her chest and lay her aching head against them with a groan, she hadn't ever been this tired before in her life but she couldn't go back to sleep now, they had what would become a severe problem; they were going to run out of food.
When she had packed back at the house she had figured on two adults needing a small breakfast with maybe a snack added in before they found a shop far away from what she had hoped was her own mind unravelling. Well, in so far as it could be said she had figured anything at all. True she had a few tins of beans and assorted fruit, but she was already feeling hungry herself and knew the food wouldn't last.
'Laura?' Sarah felt the girl look up at her even with her eyes closed, she hadn't asked the girl her name after all,
'What.' It wasn't a question, it was an admonishment.
'Do you know if there are any shops around here?'
Sarah looked up at the silence and saw the girl obviously warring with herself,
'There's one back the way we came.' Laura finally answered, it wasn't immediately obvious which internal machination had won the war.
'Look, we're going to need food before too long and...' Sarah began,
'We can't go back out there!' The girl blurted, adding 'I'm not letting Stevie get hurt.'
'I didn't ask you to,' Sarah sighed, 'I just want you to tell me where it is.'
'You're leaving us?' Laura said with an incredulous look, 'here?' she waved her arm around for emphasis.
'Yes.' Sarah stated simply, getting to her feet again with a groan, 'but I'm going to have a look around first, see exactly what “here” is.'
'You can't, what if you get “snatched” and come back here?' Laura had motioned Steven off her and was standing herself now,
'We don't have enough food to last the rest of the day, let alone...' Sarah stopped, she had no idea how long it would take for this to blow over, if it ever did.
'Let alone what!?' Laura asked angrily, 'our Mum is crazy, our Grandad is... hurt, there are others out there and you don't know what the fuck is going on!'
'Laura!' Steven admonished,
'Sorry Stevie, that is a bad word.' The girl smiled briefly at the childish look of shock on her brother's face and turned back to Sarah.
'You were right before, we aren't your responsibility but he is mine.' Laura gestured to Steven, 'I don't know you, I don't trust you and you seem nice but... I don't know what to do.'
Sarah watched as the girl held back tears, making a show of forcing the obviously rising panic down. She marvelled at the girl's self-control when she herself was barely able to keep herself calm.
'I can't give you what you need,' Sarah said calmly, 'I don't know anything, but I can guess a little.'
'Like what?' Laura's tone was flat, her voice controlled.
'Whatever happened, happened last night.' Sarah started, 'Whatever it is that is happening works quickly so I think we would have heard about it before if it had happened earlier. I also think...'
Sarah paused for a moment, looking away so that she could lie easier,
'I think that the people who have been “changed”, are who they think they are.’ she hated this, hated to even voice her desperate hopes and pretend they were truth, she didn’t want to live with this,
‘My Daniel sounded exactly the same, acted the same as when he wasn't... Changed. Your Mother also seemed to me as though she was a woman frantically searching for her children.'
'Searching so she could,' Laura finished her sentence by mouthing the words “kill us”.
'Only when she saw you,' Sarah didn't know if the girl was buying the lie, she certainly hadn’t convinced herself; Daniel had been far too keen to have her come home.
'So...' Laura gave Sarah a searching, hopeful look, 'You think that they're... confused? Like they're hypnotised or something?'
'Something like that.' Sarah looked into the girl's eyes this time, until Laura looked away.
'So, if you get caught you'll what, stay away?' The girl asked,
'Yes.'
'You promise?'
'I promise.'
Laura breathed a deep shaking breath and nodded, 'Ok then. The only shop I know of near here is back down the track, the first path on your right after the kiddie park. Follow it down past the housing estate and the shops on the end of the main road, opposite the old youth centre.'
'Thank you.' Sarah smiled down at her and turned resignedly to the dark opening away from the window,
‘Wait, actually do you have a phone with you?’ Sarah said turning back, she knew with their run from their mother the girl might not have grabbed hers but,
‘Yeah.’ Laura fished the phone from an inside pocket of her jacket and waved it a little, ‘Why?’
‘We should swap numbers.’ Sarah took the proffered phone, a newer model than her own even, then quickly added her number into it and called herself. She passed the phone back before adding Laura’s name to the “unknown caller” in the call received on her own. Slipping the phone back into her own pocket Sarah turned away once more and headed away from the light.
'Sarah?' Laura called before she could walk through it into the blackness, 'be careful.'
She left the children behind in the storeroom and entered the space beyond, careful not to stand on any of the bits of brick and tile littering the ground. The tiny shafts of light coming in from the window in the storeroom barely touched this new area and Sarah had to stand still for a minute before she saw that it was a hall with a door at one end, the other stopping at another with “toilet” written above it in a glowing green. Steven had been right, it really did stink in here. Touching a hand to the cold plaster she moved towards the door, away from the safety of the store room. She was a metre from it when her heart jumped into her mouth at the sound of Steven coughing, she heard Laura whispering for him to be quieter and Sarah let her heart calm a little before reaching out for the handle she could barely make out. The metal was chilly in her grasp, rough with what she assumed was rust. It turned with surprising ease and the door opened with only a small puff of dusty air.
She only let it open a crack, but this was enough for her to tell that the room beyond was at least lit by daylight if still murky. She didn't hear any noise let alone protest from anybody beyond so she let the door swing silently forward another few inches, enough to allow her to get an eye to the gap. The space beyond was far too large to call a room, it seemed to be a large production floor from what little she could see. Still no noise so she decided to be a little bolder, letting the door open enough for her to slip inside, she did so and closed the door behind her with a snick. The space was dominated by a huge vat sat off to her left, easily capable of holding a small group of people inside it, it towered almost to the ceiling high above. To her far left were stairs leading to a catwalk spanning the length of the space over her head, they were mirrored by stairs on her far right. The middle and middle-right of the floor space was devoid of machinery, the cleaner spaces like anti-shadows on the floor where large things had obviously once stood. It may have been devoid of machinery but it wasn't empty, Sarah once again felt a little terror jab her heart like an icicle; the floor sp
ace was occupied by belongings.
Sleeping bags, rucksacks, items of clothing and other small signs of habitation littered the floor in piles and heaps. Letting go of a breath she didn't know she had been holding, Sarah did a more thorough sweep of the huge room with her eyes. Nothing moved, there were absolutely no sounds and she couldn't see any other doors from where she stood; aside from the main ones which were quite obviously barred.
So where is everybody she thought. Stepping quietly into the centre of the space, Sarah could see a little order to the chaos; sets of things were kept apart from other piles. What made it obvious was that there wasn't more than one sleeping bag to a pile, she quickly counted and found seven sleeping bags. Seven separate piles and so most probably seven people who might be back at any minute and pissed to find her looking through their things.
Sarah turned to leave, get the kids and get out, maybe find another factory, or a hole in the ground; when she had a thought that stopped her. What in the hell were seven people doing camping out in an abandoned factory anyway? She turned back to the piles of things and carefully looked through the closest.
Chocolate bar wrappers, crisp packets, bottles and cans of several different types of energy drinks and right at the bottom, rolled into the foot of the sleeping bag itself; a two-litre bottle of white cider, still unopened.
'No fucking way.' Sarah muttered incredulously, moving to another pile. More of the same, but with the added bonus of a battery-less torch and an empty box of matches. The rest of the piles held their own treasures, one even containing a wind-up radio. Sarah stacked what was useful to one side with resolve; she knew what this was now! Everything from the junk food to the god-awful cider pointed towards teenagers. Obviously, they had come to camp in the abandoned factory, thinking they would be left alone to get drunk and party. She guessed they were caught out, either by being too loud and bringing the police down on them, or by having their parents find them. Sarah decided that it must have been police; the teenagers would have taken their things otherwise, and it didn't matter anyway because they probably wouldn't be back. At least that's what she hoped.
Laura wasn't so sure of their safety when Sarah went back to tell the kids what she had found, but the few meagre supplies and copious amounts of bedding placated her for what Sarah promised would be a short stay.
'All I have to do is go and buy some more food,' Sarah said to the girl, 'From what you said I could be back and gone within an hour and anybody that was caught here last night would wait 'til dark again before coming back for their stuff, at which point we'll be gone.'
Steven had already curled himself up in the pile of sleeping bags and was blinking owlishly at them both from the nest, 'I'm hungry.' He pointed out.
'Fine.' Laura sighed, flopping down into the pile with her brother, 'Just be careful, please.'
Sarah guessed the sentiment was one born of self-preservation rather than any real caring for her, but it felt nice to lie to herself for a while and feel a little less lost. A very little.
'I promise.' Sarah smiled, looking down at her pack and deciding to leave it, it'd only slow her down, 'Try and stay awake, I'll be back before you know it.'
Sarah strode to the window and pulled herself out without waiting for a reply; she was terrified of leaving the relative safety of the room and was sure she wouldn't leave if the girl protested much more. Her palms were slick with sweat, causing her to come out of the vault with more force than she had meant and the momentum forced her into a jog on the other side. With some difficulty Sarah managed to keep it to a jog, rather than sprinting across the open ground like she wanted. The chain-link fence loomed up and she stopped, her heart thundering in her chest and her breath coming in short gasps.
She draped her jacket over the barbed wire on top and took a step back, feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass, holding onto her fear with her fingertips; she jumped to scramble over.
7
Sarah fingered the hole that the wire had made in her jacket, the sound of her trainers scuffing on loose stones making the surrounding silence less foreboding. She had been walking for about fifteen minutes, following the little track back the way they had come earlier and so far, she hadn't seen another person. The path was walled in by more chain-link fences, with thick hedges on the other side. The effect was claustrophobic, she was sure the fences hadn't bowed in towards the path earlier; now they loomed threateningly to make her scurry faster. The word “scurry” got caught up in her head, made her think how much like a mouse she felt in this new world of monsters. The people she would meet today would all most likely try to kill her, or whatever it was they did. When Daniel had gone into a frenzy back at their house he had treated their elderly neighbours like invaders, his attack had been like something she'd seen on Discovery once. Chimpanzee's defending their territory had ripped a smaller primate limb from limb, beating it with their fists, ripping it with their teeth. She shuddered at the thought and pulled her fingers away from the tear in her jacket, wrapping her arms around herself instead.
She didn't want to think about Daniel, even when his twisted snarling face didn't swirl to the surface of her mind she hurt from the thought of his loving kind one. She envied Laura's cool detachment from her mother, then thought of her own parents. They were probably safe, they lived out of town and besides, it wasn't as if she could warn them, her father wouldn't believe a word of it.
Ok, so maybe she did have Laura's level of parental detachment. She amended her envious thoughts to Laura's lack of a boyfriend to worry about and then wondered whether the girl might not have one. Her wandering mind wasn't numbed enough to not notice the sound coming from behind her on the path however. Sarah didn't turn to see what the noise had been, she just ran.
The park was empty. It wasn't early morning any more but it was a Sunday, the fact that the place was empty was still something of a surprise though. Bringing the whole of herself out from around the corner she started toward the park and caught sight of the red stain on the concrete before the gate. She stared at it as she walked, her mind placing an image of the woman over reality. Whatever it was these things were she knew now that they healed fast. Sarah thought about the looks on the kids' faces and thanked God that she hadn't killed her, then caught herself when she thought of the danger they were all still in and decided to just not think about it anymore. She had dealt with more conflicting emotions today than she could handle, if she survived the next day she promised herself she would sit down and work the morality out. The gate swung open easily and she walked across the soft coloured rubberised flooring, her ankles aching from the extra degree of movement required.
'Wish I would heal quickly.' Sarah muttered to herself, getting her feet back onto solid ground as the second gate swung closed behind her.
Moving to the right she found the second path and started down it. Now she was in an alley behind people's gardens, the mismatched fences and gates moving past without making her feel hemmed in. Nobody else was on the path, she couldn't hear any sound other than her own footsteps and she marvelled at her luck. She didn't want to see anybody until she reached the shop, that way she could buy the supplies and make her way back to the factory any way possible, rather than being stuck to following directions. Turning it into steps made her feel less flighty, let her walk rather than jog and she felt grateful for the relative rest to her legs.
Sarah found herself peeking over the lower fences into back gardens and through windows. She could see televisions on and curtains open but nobody looked back out at her. She stopped looking when the panic started rising again and instead concentrated on her steps. Looking down at her trainers made her think of work, tomorrow was Monday and although it wasn't like she kept to a normal week routine, her clients would all be expecting her. She tried to remember the specific classes she had tomorrow and couldn't, then decided she didn't really care. She liked her work, didn't dread going in like most of her friends did but it wasn't a passion. She went to work,
she showed people how to sweat and she went home.
A door slammed in one of the houses and she span around looking for the noise, nothing. She started moving again, faster now. The end of the houses came abruptly to her left and opened out into a field ringed with spaced trees. Sarah looked out onto the field and blanched; a shape that was unmistakably a dog was charging in wide circles around a figure in the grass. The dog stopped suddenly and stared up at her, Sarah only had eyes for the figure standing stock still. She thought it was a man in a long brown coat, but it was hard to tell at this distance. The question was whether the man was turned or not. Would he come charging towards her if she stayed here, she didn't think she could outrun him if he did. With a grimace, she realised that she probably wouldn't outrun a normal person either.
The dog's pricked ears twitched. It exploded towards her at a full sprint. Maybe the man wouldn't be her biggest problem,
'Shit!' Sarah didn't try running down the path, instead she leapt for the nearest tree and got her arms around the first branch. She pulled herself up, legs kicking at open air, finally managing to swing her feet up too. Not stopping to wonder how high the dog could jump she made for the next branch up and the next. Sharp burrs in the wood scratched her hands in her haste, branches whipping across her face, tangling in her hair and tearing a little free from her scalp. She had only been in the tree for a handful of seconds when the sound of panting barks and scrabbling claws made her look down. The dog was at the base of the tree, front paws spaced wide on the trunk, thick head pointed up at her, fangs bared in a terrifying grin. Up close she could see it was kind of short but wide, the thing was probably not too far off her own weight and looked like a body-builder with thick muscles roping down its neck and chest. It barked up at her between growls, the sound cutting through to some deep primal monkey part of her brain and telling her to stay in the damn tree until it got bored.